


Love Like a Rockslide

by Lizardlicks



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Ancestors and Dancestors as a Family Unit, Brother Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Eggpreg, Feralstuck, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Medical Trauma, Mpreg, Oviparous Trolls, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:05:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4535523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardlicks/pseuds/Lizardlicks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Injured, tired, scared and alone, Cronus has to figure out how to keep himself and his brother alive without kin or clan to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write kid fluff, but Sour Candy is at a not very fluffy point in the story, and was being an emotional drain to work on. So you get this self indulgent glurge instead.

Your side burns with every movement, every breath, it’s torture.  You want to stop, need to, but you don’t dare, you can’t, you _can’t_ -

You slip on the slick of your own blood one more time and land hard on your knees.  The sting hardly registers; it’s just one more hurt on the pile, what do you care?  This time the will to stand and keep moving fucks off just out of your reach.  You lean down, rest your head against the cool rock and try to catch your breath without jostling the stabbing ache in your side with each pant.

The bundle in your arms shifts.  Eridan wiggles, and his little claws flex in your shirt.

“Cro?” He’s been so good, so quiet, keeping only to strangled whimpers that he smothered by pressing his face into your chest, but now his panic is starting to take over.  His volume and pitch both jump wildly.  “Cro! CROOOO!?”

“Hey,” you weaze, wince, and have to slam your jaw shut to clench against the flare of pain just that little bit of effort causes.  Eridan hiccups and pauses his building tantrum long enough for you to get a little control back, thank fuck.

“Heyyy,” you try again, softer, “Hey, shush, shhh I’m just havin’ a break, kiddo.”  

He snuffles and presses his snot covered face to you again.  “Scared, Cro.  Wanna go h-home.”

“I know,” you tell him.  “Me too.”  You don’t say _we will_ or _it’s okay_ , because you don’t fucking well know if either of those things are true.  Your clade is scattered, you’re pretty sure the Orphaner is dead, although you didn’t exactly stop to check for a pulse.  You just scooped up your tiny, screaming brother, and ran.  You ran as hard and fast as your long legs would allow.  You ran far, you kept running even after the harpoon pierced your back and perforated your bottom-rightmost gill, even after the sound of battle, blood shed, and death had long since faded behind you.  Maybe that makes you a coward, but you’re an alive coward.  For the moment at least.

You don’t know how much get up and go you have left in you.  If you hold still the harpoon head still lodged in your side dies down to a slow, pulsing throb, but as soon as you move again it will light up in fire.  Dawn will be coming soon though, and you need cover before you lose any advantage of eluding death that the darkness has given you.  Eridan is so tiny and still in your arms.  He settles like a good grub because he trusts you to have this shit.  You are clinging to this shit by the skin of your claws and pure terror.

One more time, Cronus, c’mon.  Just this one more time.

Slowly, with every inch of your body protesting, you climb back to your feet, and stagger further on.

 

* * *

 

The cave is shallow and small, but it’s deep enough to hold you both, narrow enough that you have to crawl through on your hands and knees and can block the whole entrance with your body, and high enough above the tide that nothing can sneak up on you while you sleep.  You set Eridan down, and he whines a protest.  You have to force his fists to unclench from your shirt.  For one brief moment you’re set to flip your ever loving shit because there’s blood all over him, but he says he’s not hurt, and after checking him over for yourself, you’re sure it’s just your own blood.  You should be relieved, but all you feel is dizzy, and the crawling sick feeling in your stomach won’t go away.

“Danny, you stay here for a bit, okay?  I gotta do something, and I don’t want you watching.”

“Don’t leave, Cro,” he sniffs back tears and clings to you.

“I ain’t leavin’ Eridan.  Just gotta take care of some shit.  I’ll be right close, okay?  You can shout if you need me.”  He finally consents to releasing you, and you shoo him into the opening, tell him to be still, and quiet as he can, and not to come out for anything until you come back.  He smushes himself to the back of the cave like a limpet and goes so silent you’d be hard pressed to even say he was there if you didn’t know better.

Good.  Stay there kid, be good.  You have to put some distance between you, get out of sight, but not shouting range.  You don’t want him seeing this next part.  He’s already going to have nightmares you think, and this is going to be hard enough without a miniature audience.

You know the clan that raided yours uses barbed tips on their harpoons.  You know pulling will just make things worse, and you know that it still has to come out.  Thank Spin’s Lady of Luck you had your hunting kit on you.  You didn’t have the presence of mind to grab anything but Eridan, for which you’re currently kicking yourself.  A rifle would have been a boon for hunting and protection, and they’re not doing your dead cousins any favors, but it’s far too late for that.  What you do have is a small, embroidered pouch that holds a fire starter, a wet stone, and a sheathed hunting knife.

There’s dry dune grass, and scattered driftwood a plenty this time of year.  You find a dip in the ground, someplace that will hide a small fire from view and get to building it.  It’s sloppy, and ugly, but you got the basics, and it will work for what you need.  Once you got the flame popping steadily you cast off your ruined shirt, take your knife and-

and-

You’re panting too fast, your hands are shaking.  You set the knife across your knee, take a breath, and count to eight before letting it out slow through your nose.  You have to do that a couple more times before you get the tremors in your hands under control.  A third, and fourth time, and you can finally shove your resolve into place.  You take up the knife again, grit your teeth, and hiss through them as you press your skin taught with the other hand.  

Cutting your own flesh is surprisingly easy after the first hesitation.  You expected self-preservation to make it an effort, but the hunting knife is wicked sharp because the Orphaner would have cuffed your fins if you’d kept your equipment in anything but the most pristine condition, and it does most of the work for you.  The lump of the harpoon head is easy to find, it twists and stabs with every movement.  You lay yourself open between your ribs and follow the line into your ruined gill.  The pain is more clean and bright than anything you’ve ever felt, hardly pain at all.  New violet blood wells up and spills over the old, crusted streaks.  It’s only when you have to set the knife aside and poke your fingers into the new opening that it really hits you.

You forget to breathe as you try to get a grip on the foreign thing lodged inside you.  Worse than the pain is the sensation, the violation of it.  The distinct feeling of something inside you that should not be, the way your blood glues thick and warm to your fingers, and the sick, sucking _pop_ the harpoon tip makes as you finally wiggle it free and cast it aside.  The relief of it bends you over with a gasp.  Your operculum are twitching and spasming reflexively and it hurts!  It hurts so fucking bad, and you still need to staunch the bleeding before you pass out, but the thing is gone, it’s _gone_!

You force your eyes open, and flail for the knife again.  It’s forged metal, a rare, precious thing that you were proud to earn on the day of your first solo kill, and the fire leaves little visible evidence on it beside some smoke discoloration.  It would take more than a pitiful campfire to  heat it glowing, but you don’t need it to glow.  It’s hot enough for the job.  The job is dragging it back through the wound to sear the flesh closed.

You don’t even recognize the high whistle of agony riding every exhale as your own at first.  Your vision is all black, and stars, and you can’t tell if that’s because of the pain or because you fell over, and ended up looking at the sky.  Turns out it’s because you clamped your eyes shut so tight you were making patterns dance behind your lids.  Your whole right side has seized up ridged.  You think you might want to curl up and turn into a rock just so you’ll never have to move again.  Maybe you could just sleep here a while...

No, wait fuck, Eridan.  Even though he’s sure to have heard your screams, he hasn’t come looking.  He’s still out of sight, hopefully staying put like you told him.

Slowly, with every movement an effort like swimming in ice water, you wipe your blade clean on your old shirt.  Then you cut the shirt to strips; it’s useless for anything else at this point.  It’s a struggle to get them wrapped around you when one of your arms doesn’t want to move right, but you do it anyway.  Once you get your feet under you, you kick the fire out with sand, scatter it as best you can to hide the evidence of your presence, then finally, you can pick your way back up the hill to your temporary refuge.

Eridan is still plastered to the back wall when you return.  He doesn’t respond when you call to him softly, and after a moment of study you can see his rib cage moving slow and even.  Poor kid, passed right the fuck out.  Looks like he cried himself to sleep; his cheeks are still damp and he’s got his first two finger stuck in his mouth like he didn’t outgrow the habit last season.  You gently hook them out of his mouth with your pinky and frown at the worry marks he’s chewed into his knuckles.  He sighs, but otherwise doesn’t stir.

You put your back to the opening, yourself between him, and the world, and enclose him in the protective bubble of your arms.  You’re beckoned to oblivion by the lullaby of a babe’s breathing.

 

* * *

 

“Cro.  Crooooo.  Crocrocrocro-”  Eridan is shaking you.  Your whole world is on fire.  You groan, and attempt to bat your brother away, but he’s a persistent little shit, just like every Ampora before him.

“Croooo, Cro’m hungry!”

“So go eat a minnow,” you grump at him with your usual come back.  Not your job to feed the sprat unless Orphaner’s put you on-

Oh.  Oh fuck.  There is no Orphaner, there’s no Spin, there’s no anybody.  Carefully, you use your left arm to lever yourself upright.  Your whole right side gives a protesting throb that echos up to your horns, and the space between your ribs feels tender-hot.  God, you hope the harpoon wasn’t poisoned, there is jack all you could do about that.

Eridan clamors into your lap and snuggles right up to your good side.  You haven’t seen the wiggler being this cuddly since he first pupated and Spin had him sitting on her hip wherever she went.  He’s got his sharp little teeth to fussing at his lip again.

“‘Kay, buddy, you gotta let go if you want me to go find us some eats.”

“Go with you,” he states flatly and hugs harder.  Your heart’s breaking.

“Danny, no, it’s too dangerous.”

“Go with you!”  He insists, louder.  You grab the back of his neck and scruff him till he whines and looks up at you proper, then you give him a stern reproach with a half flick of your fins and a soft growl.  He shrinks, then scoots his butt backwards off your lap and up against the wall.

“Eridan, I don’t know who or what’s out there.  You gotta stay here where it’s safe, understand?”  He whines again, but nods.  “Good boy.  Stay put.”  You emphasize the command with grubspeak, a short, sharp bark that conveys _danger/stop/don’t move_.  He doesn’t.

Satisfied, you crawl out of the den and stand up to your full height slowly.  You stretch carefully, one section at a time, but the wound still pulls in a sharp pinch no matter what you do.  The sun is setting.  Looks like you slept through most of the day, but you should still have some light left to examine last night’s work by.

You limp your way down the rock shelf to the scant beach, plop down, and take off your dressing.  The wound looks... not good.  The skin around it is ominous black, and purple, and the wound itself is kind of oozy.  Your damaged gill is so swollen the operculum won’t close over it all the way.  Fuck.  You should have washed it out last night, but you were so hurt, and tired.  You probably sealed the infection in.

You sigh, and grunt as you pull yourself up again.  Seatrolls are tough.  The older trolls you knew all survived worse.  Well... they did until last night anyway, and maybe some wily bastards got away like you and Danny did.  You’ll live.  You’ll keep your brother alive, and you’ll find or found a new clan.

The salt sting of the ocean’s touch is not one you’re looking forward to, but you have to endure it.  Once you’re in the water up to your armpits you can submerge your head, push out the air in your lungs and- _FUCK_!  Fuck, oh god, that hurts like- fuck!

It’s like claws raking through your ribs, but on the inside.  For a few minutes it’s all you can do to just concentrate on pumping one gulp of water after the other while you curl up and whimper.  Each push through your gills grows a little less painful, but it still aches vengefully.  When you can force your eyes open again there’s blood staining the water.  You hope you don’t call in anything looking for an easy meal, because you would probably end up being one.

Your contortion act didn’t scare off breakfast, thankfully.  You’re slowed by pain, and down one gill, but still sleek, mean, and full of teeth.  You grab a big rock bass that wasn’t wary enough, and haul its thrashing carcass back to shore.  First thing, you pull more cloth strips out of your pouch, and rewrap the wound, then you get out the hunting knife, and make sure it’s good and clean in the ocean water before you gut your catch.  The sack of roe you savor for yourself, but you keep the heart and liver for Eridan.

He sits huddled as meek as a baby antlerbeast right where you left him in the cave.  He doesn’t flinch a muscle until you give him the all clear with a soft trill, then he’s all over you, dancing and chirping with excitement.  You let him have free reign over the fish until he’s had his fill, and you just flop over and shut your eyes to rest for a moment.  You’re startled awake again by Eridan shaking you..  The sun’s fully gone.  You didn’t mean to go all the way under, but you’re tired.

“Cro, eat,” he says, nudging the desecrated fish under your nose, and you feel a little guilty that your baby bro has to take care of you too, not just the other way around.  You really aren’t hungry, but you humor him.  He worms his way right back into your lap while you pick what’s left of the good bits out between the bones, and grins at you while licking his claws clean.  There’s scales all around his impish little mouth.  When you’ve eaten enough to satisfy his demands, you loop an arm around him, trap him in a hug, and groom his face to the tune of indignant squeals.  After that you drift a little more.

 

* * *

 

You surface from sleep a few times, but it’s always a brief break in what’s otherwise a strange procession of dreams and nightmares.  Eridan, by contrast, doesn’t seem to get much sleep at all.  You always wake to find him still as death, but watching you with his big, dark eyes, and a crease of worry marring his forehead.  You want to say or do something to soothe him, but you don’t know what, and you feel like you’ve burned through every reserve you’ve had already.  You should be out looking for any of your living family, but just the thought exhausts and terrifies you.

Any hope you had of being on the mend is soundly crushed when you wake up both sweating and shivering.  Your side is aflame.  You try to hide your discomfort, but Eridan notices.  He whimpers, and licks your cheek, your forehead and your fin.  You purr for him in return.  It’s the only thing you can do to console him, just let him know he’s doing good.  Too soon, you’re dragged under again.

 

* * *

 

You can’t sleep forever, as much as your body is determined to try.  This time when you rise and trek down to the water, you let Eridan tag along with you, if only so he can be a second pair of eyes while you’re this off your game.  The wound looks no better than when you last changed the bandages.  It’s still swollen, and hot, and there’s yellow gunk leaking from the edges.  You suck it up and head into the water.

The pain hits you just like before, but you’re ready for it this time.  Once the sting has died down to a manageable level, you work on draining and cleaning your wound.  Ugh, it’s gross.  It’s gross, and it pounds in vicious retaliation for your efforts, and you have never felt so betrayed by your own body.  Fuck this meat suit, you’re trying to keep it from falling apart, and this is how it repays you.  You’re half tempted to starve it out of spite, but that would probably suck worse than the infection.

You check on Eridan when you’ve finished tending the worst of it, and find he’s caught himself a crab.  He’s perched on a shelf of rock under the waterline and safe from view of anyone wandering by on land, and he’s got his prize pinned under a hind leg while he twists its legs off one at a time to suck out the meat.  Well at least he’s fed and entertained.  You think you should get something else in you as well, even if your stomach protests at the idea.  You settle quickly for some bivalves clinging to in the rocks.  They’re easy pickings, and the shells aren’t much of a defense against you when you know the trick to them.

Eridan takes his sweet time, and is down to licking each half of the crab’s body plates clean by the time you’ve finished up eating, cleaning, and rebandaging.  He comes when you click to him.  It’s surprising how quick you pick grubspeak back up when you need it.  Once you got the hang of mouth sounds after pupation you never wanted to use it, but Eridan is still learning to string words together into sentences, and the instinctive understanding of noise, fin, and body language is universal from hatchday.  In your current situation quick and clear communication trumps him trying to expand his vocabulary.  He thumps right into your leg and hugs it.  You can’t resist the urge to ruffle his hair until the damp makes it stick up in funny spikes, and he mock-bites at your fingers.

The realization that he’s the only thing you have left hits you with the same weight as a rock slide.  A whole mountain face of loss and loneliness cracks off your heart and buries you.  Your ass hits the ground, and you scoop him up, and smother him in a hug.

“Cro...”  He’s sounds wary, but not reproachful.  “Cro, shhh.  Shhhh.”  Cool little hands go pap-pap-pap at your temples, and you try to disguise a sob as a laugh.

“You shoosh,” you fire back, and this time you actually do laugh.  He knows something is wrong, but he doesn’t know what, so he just keeps imitating the soothing noises adults make at him, even when they come out nonsense words.  He’s precious, and helpless, and you’ll kill for him, he owns you so completely.

You’re willing to chalk your sudden crush of ferocious parental urges up to being sick and traumatized in short distance of each other, but that doesn’t change the fact that you need him just so you won’t  give up right here on the beach.  Shaking and nauseated, you wobble back up to your feet with Eridan cradled against you, and stumble back to your cave.

 

* * *

 

You shiver awake.  Something’s wrong.  A whole fuck ton of things are wrong actually, but something in particular is wrong right now.  Eridan has pressed himself so hard to you he’s practically trying to crawl into your skin, and he’s stringing out continuous distressed clicking.  He muffles it against your body where no one outside will hear, but it’ll telegraph right through your bones to the back of think pan where it lights up one message like a beacon: _scaredscaredscaredscared!_

Something scrapes and sniffs outside.  You turn slow, and ponderous.  You’re floating and you can’t get your body to respond right.  You think you might be dreaming still, especially when you see the the two points of lit-coal red staring back at you, like no color you’ve ever seen on a troll or animal.

It shifts.  Starlight reveals the outline of a body, solid and very real.  Adrenaline spikes through you and sets your pusher thundering in your ears, but you still can’t move fast.  It takes all your effort to face it, flare your fins out wide and bare every fang with a buzzing, warning hiss.  You don’t know if you can survive a fight, but you’ll die blocking the intruder’s entry to Eridan if you have to, and give this jackass something to reconsider in the process.

Whoever it is regards your warning with a long stare.   Then they turn side on and huff.  

You- you’re... oh, come on!  They don’t even consider you a threat!  Asshole just snubbed you, presented his unguarded flank in a clear message: you aren’t even worth it to consider assuage or aggress.  You’re going to be ignored.

Affront wins out over reason.  You’ve been scared and hurt for days, and you’re sick of it, and you have all the weight of your clan’s pride driving you forward.  You charge a short distance and snap your teeth loud enough to startle a shore bird awake.  The gull fusses at you, but the strange troll has no more reaction than to favor you with a prissy expressing, closing one eye and half-lidding the other.  Oh that is it!

You make to charge again, with intent this time, but Eridan cries out in fight behind you, and that slams you into a dead stop.  This is stupid, you can’t be risking your own hide when his is on the line too.  Your intruder’s gaze flicks down to him, then back up to you.  He seems to reach some sort of conclusion, then turns his back to you and strolls away, calm as you please.

That- aaurgh, fuck him!  You slink back into your hole and scoop up Eridan, groom him until his terrified whimpers die down to hiccups.  Neither of you sleep the rest of that night, not even when the sunrise finds you slowly blinking and nodding your head.  Your safety and security is gone.

 

* * *

 

Neither the morning air nor the ocean can quench your fevered body.  You don’t know how far you can go in this condition, but you have to move on.  Your hiding place was discovered, and you can’t risk more trolls coming back when you’re weaker.  Eridan sits quietly and watches you as you clean and redress the wound.  You know he’s chewing on his fingers when he thinks you aren’t looking, but you can’t bring yourself to yell at him for it.  You’re kind of a shitty security blanket right now, and the kid needs something to comfort him.  He’s more shaken after last night’s confrontation than you are.

You catch another fish and split it between you right there on the beach.  Neither of you has much of an appetite this morning, but you both need the strength and stamina it will provide, so you bully Eridan into eating as much as he can, then force the rest down yourself.  Without any other hunting tools, it might be the last meal you have for a while.  You don’t feel safe on the exposed openness of the shoreline anymore, so your new direction is to head inland.

 

* * *

 

You carry Eridan for a while, and when you’re too tired for that you let him trot along side, keeping your pace slow, but steady.  This is the most walking he’s ever had to do at one time, and he’s not at all used to it being as he spent most days playing in the safety of the den or being toted around by an adult.  You’re a little thankful for it.  Keeping up in this state with a wiggler just a little bit older would have been hell.  As it is, you’re flagging by noon.  The tree canopy doesn’t keep out all of the heat of the day, and you’re already running too hot to begin with.

A misplaced step has you down on your knees and you don’t have energy left to get back up.  Eridan whines in concern and burrows under your arm.

“Let’s have a rest, eh chief?”  You ruffle his hair, and he nods like he believes you’re sitting on your glutes on purpose, instead of teetering on the edge of collapse.  

There’s an ancient tree with big, lumped up roots that look like miniature mountains.  You take shelter in the deep shade of it.  The earth is cool and damp, it feels so nice on your flushed skin half a trill sneaks into your sigh.  You curl around Eridan as he butts his head into your chin, slotting it in the valley of his horns as he nuzzles into your throat.  He’s astonishingly cool too.  You’re sweating, but a chill tunnels into your joints where they creak and ache.  Your eyes close.  They don’t open again for a while.

 

* * *

 

Orphaner is leaning over you.  He’s glaring at you with his bad eye because there’s something wrong with his good one.

 

(They put a sword through it, they put a fucking sword-)

 

“Get up.”

You’re weighed down.  You struggle, throw yourself against it, but you can’t move, or maybe the world moves with you.  Sucks you down slow, like it wants to savor you for a long, long time.

“Get up.”

 

(-don’t look at it, don’t look at it, dont-)

 

“Can’t,”  you mean to say it matter of fact, but it comes out a frightened squeal.

“Cronus, get yer sorry, ratty hide up, ye fuckin’ snivlin’ grub!”  He screams at you and something sprays from his mouth, too sticky and thick to be saliva, but that’s because it’s purple, dripping down his chin.

 

(It’s everywhere, it’s on you, oh god-)

 

“I just told you, I can’t!” you shriek back at the spector of your dead dam, and he sneers.  He reaches down-

 

(-blood on his hands, on his face, in his throat as he’s screaming at you to run-)

 

-grabs you by your shoulders and shakes-

 

Your eyes fly open.  Everything is a disordered jumble of meaningless noise and movement. Eridan’s got your elbow in a death grip, and he’s jostling it as vicious as his little self can manage, which is a lot more than he usually can considering you can’t get any of your limbs to do anything but flop.  You feel like death ate shit and spit it back up again, then squashed it under something heavy for good measure.  The pounding, pulsing wound in your side is echoed by thudding front and center in your thinkpan, a pressure that presses on the back of your eyeballs like it wants to force them out of your skull, and twists like broken glass through your horns.  When you try to speak the sound sticks sharp in your throat and comes out a pained groan.

“Cro, food!”  At first you think he’s asking you to go get him something to eat which kicks you all ugly in your heart because you can’t.  You can’t even move, how’re you going to-  Then he tugs again and points.  There’s a bundle of cloth sitting just outside your ring of deep shade.  It’s splotched with grease, and when you have a good sniff the smell smacks you square in the stomach.  Something roasted and good.  It’s the first time in days that your fussy belly hasn’t objected to the thought of eating.

Eridan turns and makes to go for it, and alarm overwhelms your hunger.  You flail, and just manage to snag his ankle before he charges out into the open.  He squeaks, startled as he face plants into the dirt, but you ignore the look of betrayal he shoots you over his shoulder.  You’d rather he be pissed off than riddled full of arrows and harpoons.

“Danny... careful.  Need- need to...”  You can’t even speak, that’s pathetic.  Fins seem to be in working order though, so you flick them back, tight against your head.  His go back too.  You let go of his leg, but he gets that you’re trying to warn him.  He sits up and hunches into a ball, hugging his knees and watching you, waiting for advice.

“Stay,” you tell him.  You already got one foot into the grave sunk up to your shin, what’s the other one at this point?  

Just rolling onto your hands and knees makes you pant and shake.  You give up on the idea of getting to your feet, and crawl your way from your shelter instead.  Only enough to snag an edge of cloth and drag the bundle back to the safety of the cool and dark.  Nothing stirs, not even when you spread your fins out full and strain to catch any sign of movement.  Whoever gave you the package came and left as you slept, and that fills you up with icy dread.  They knew you were there, they could have had you or Eridan while you were too vulnerable to realize there was a threat.  The fact that they didn’t isn’t much comfort.  If someone or something less benevolent comes by, how could you hope to fight back?

Eridan’s focus narrows down to to the grease stained package in your hands, his eyes going to slits as he tongues the corner of his mouth.  It really does smell amazing and it’s still warm.  Whoever left this did it recently.  Can you trust it?  There’s only one way to find out, but you won’t risk Eridan’s life with it.  You give him another signal to wait, then fold back the cloth.

It’s a whole fucking hare, quartered and trimmed nice as you please, and it’s been soaked in something herby and sweet smelling.  There’s no way you could smell a poison if it’s hiding one.  You pick up each piece and turn it over, but a visual inspection doesn’t give away any secrets either.  Only one thing left for it.  You tear a chunk off.

The meat is tender beneath the crisp fat, gently flavored, slightly gamey and accented by its marinade so perfectly it makes you cry out.  You’re salivating so bad  as you chew it nearly dribbles back out of your mouth, and you struggle not to simply inhale the whole damn thing.  Game meat was a rare thing in your clan’s diet as tied to the ocean as you were, and this is slaying you.  The hardest thing you’ve had to do today is set it back down and wait.

You don’t actually know how long you need to wait, but everything you can remember from Red chattering on about ways to kill people made you think that ingested poison is quick to act.  You’re kind of wishing now that you’d paid attention to the weirdly intense troll, and not blown her off to go flirt with cute strays.  Seconds slip by, and then minutes, and all you feel is the urge to either eat more or go back to napping.  There’s only so much resolve a troll can have, and yours has been taxed to the limit already.  Finally, you pick the quarter you’d nibbled back up and nudge rest over to Eridan, who let’s out a gleeful whoop before attacking the meal with abandon.

You can’t really describe what he does to food as eating so much.  More like savaging it into pieces small enough to swallow.  You scold him to slow down more than once, but you’re not really a great example either.  Between the two of you the hare is stripped right down to it’s bones in minutes.  Oddly, you’re feeling a bit perked after.  The headache has died back, and so has the fever.  Though you’re still hurt and tired, you think you’ve found enough reserves to keep moving.  Once he’s satisfied that the bone he’s gnawing on has no more left to give, you click to your brother, climb to your feet, and lead him back into the heat of the forest.

 

* * *

 

You make a better distance this time before the sick comes back, but it does come back and with a vengeance.  When you go down this time, you don’t get back up.

 

* * *

 

 

Eridan.  Eridan is growling.  He’s buzzing like a nest of ripper wasps has possessed him, all thunder and squall stuffed down into one tiny troll.  You force your eyes open, only get one to cooperate, and see the blur of his back squared wide blocking the rest of your view.  Something glints in his hands and you know without seeing it he’s got your hunting knife.

“Easy now, kit,” a voice you don’t recognize soothes, “be good, love, put the blade down.”

Your one working eye rolls wildly, but you can’t turn your head, can’t see who’s talking.  Beyond your field of vision there’s movement and more sound, more voices.  You’re caught, and trapped, and Eridan is trying to protect you.  

Oh god.  You failed, you failed him, and he’s still guarding your useless corpse.  Sweet, warm love bursts in your chest and forces out a painful sob.

A flash of movement, someone has him by his scruff and is shaking the knife free, and you still can’t move.  His growling has turned into feral animal sounds, shrieks of rage and terror and _you still can’t move_!

Then he’s gone.  You can still hear him, but he’s gone.  You try with every bit of resolve you have to get up, sit up, roll over, do _anything_ , but all that happens is you lift your hand an inch then flop it back down, and you cry again, dug in with sorrow.  You’re undone.  You failed.

  
“Hush, he’s fine, you’re both going to be fine.”  Warm hands frame your face and turn it.  Your vision blurs with the movement and everything swirls into useless color and motion and a loud, droning whine in your head.  The last thing you see is two eyes shining lit-coal red.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Pain like stars being born inside of you blooms, draws out all of your strength.  Redglare is leaning over you, reciting each wrong you committed as she exacts your punishment, guts and fillets you like the morning catch.  You sob confessions.  You beg forgiveness.  She’s dead, and so is Spin, and Orphaner, and all the rest of them, and their ghosts will never see you rest.  You turned your back on kin.  You ran, and left them to have their bones picked by the gulls.

But the eyes resolve to green, green, green like deep pools in still forests, not burned out emptiness, not the dead stare of your sire’s sister.  She shooshes you, and pushes your hair back from your face where it’s matted with sweat and dirt, then she cuts-

There’s violet and black on her hands, and the smell of death.  You shriek, make to throw yourself at her, but there’s warm weight on you, pinning you down.

“Hold him steady, Kankri.”

“I’ve got it.  Shhhhh, almost over.”

The pain swells again, and you retreat to blackness.

 

* * *

 

You fade in and out to different sensations, some pleasant, some not.  There’s the steady pinch and tug in your injured side while someone hums, and pets your face.  There’s the smell of something pungent-sweet, like the hare you ate, but stronger, and someone pressing a cup to your mouth to drink.  There’s a cool cloth on your face and neck, swiping over your gills and dabbing carefully around all your hurts.  There’s a voice, cascading up and down like someone playing scales, only he’s not singing, he’s talking, low and constant.  You can’t untangle meaning from the words, you just let them wash over you and sweep you away, and always there’s red eyes.

Those follow you down into your dreams when you sleep.

 

* * *

 

Your first lucid moment finally grants you a face to go with those eyes.  The troll sitting next to you can’t be much older than you; he’s got nice square features, but they’re still softened by wiggler fat and fluffy curls that you want to touch. Short, round horns, lashes a mile long.  Shiiiiit if you knew death was this cute you would have considered giving up sooner.

“Excuse you!” he snatches back his damp cloth and glowers, the hints of fins edging his face going dark around the tips.  Ahahaaaw shit, you said that last bit out loud, didn’t you.  Oh well, in for the whole catch.  You try on your most charming smile and wiggle your fins at him.  He drops the cloth over your face.

You sputter, and try to take it off but only succeed in lifting your arm enough to slap yourself in the head.  Welp, looks like you aren’t back up to full function yet.  You hear him sigh, then he moves your hand back to your side, and takes his cloth back, and you thank him with a grin that’s a lot more sheepish.  Not your greatest moment there.

“If you’re feeling that much better,” he sniffs, “you can try sitting up to eat.”

“Whoooa there, chief, let’s not get carried away.”  Your side is tight, and weird feeling, and even though it doesn’t hurt as bad as before, you aren’t eager to test your new limits.

“Nonsense, you’ll be fine.  I’ll help you.”  Your nurse isn’t interested in hearing your protests, so you don’t try to resist.  He helps roll you onto your good side, then gets his arm under yours and does most of the work to get you upright.  Your wound pulls tight, smarting with the movement, but the discomfort dies down to something reasonable once you’ve stopped.  He and his kin definitely did something to it, but it’s wrapped in good, clean linen, so you can’t see what.

What you can see now that you’ve got a better angle on things is a cozy, low roofed tent, made of some thick material you don’t recognize, and heaped up inside with animal skins.  They’ve made you a nest out of them.  You can smell camp smoke, and hear laughter and talking drifting in through the sliver of a door flap, but you’re alone with this other troll.  Alone.

“Where’s Eridan?”  Panic starts worming through your chest.  You can’t imagine he’d stay away willingly, what did they do with him?

“Your kit’s fine,” you companion tells you as he pushes a cup of something into your hands.  “Him and Karkat have been a good distraction for each other.  I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to know you’re awake, though.  Drink this.”

“Not my kit.  Brother.  Out of the same dam.”  You don’t know why it feels important that he knows that.  Eridan might as well be your own by now.  You sniff the offered drink, and he chuckles at you.

“It’s broth.  Plus some herbs from my gran’s garden.  It’ll help you heal faster.”

“Must be some magic fuckin’ herbs,” you snort, but the other troll just smiles knowingly.

“She’s spent a great deal of time researching the medicinal properties of various flora and fauna.  Longer than any of her grubs have been alive, so far as she tells it.  I think you’ll find magic isn’t necessary.”

Magic or not, the first sip hooks you.  Suddenly you’re ravenous, because you drain the whole thing in a few gulps while he clucks disapprovingly at you, and when you’re done you ask for more.  He sighs, but your smile must be winsome enough, because you get seconds and thirds.

 

* * *

 

Your rescuer’s name is Kankri.  He’s a season older than you, and alternates between doting on you like a lover, and chiding you like a wiggler.  And he talks.  Oh gods deep below, does he ever talk.  You want to hold his head under water and you want to kiss him.  You’re smitten.

His sire laughs when she catches the look on your face during one of his lectu- lessons-  and shoos him out with the excuse that she needs to change your bandages, which is true.  She’s a broad woman with wild hair barely kept in check with a braid, strong, square shoulders and more scars than lines on a map, but she’s as gentle with you as a new egg.  

“Don’t mind his mouth,” she tells you when he’s gone, “he gets that from my beloved.  You should hear them going at each other, the debates last for days.”  She doesn’t laugh but her eyes do.  Green ones.  She’s the one who helped Kankri while you were out of it.

She takes the old wrappings off and you can see how much you’re missing.  Part of your injured gill was apparently not salvageable, a fact that you mourn, but what’s left is clean, and has the shiny look of new growth.  The rot is gone, cut out, and the skin’s been pulled over, and closed with stitches so even you’d think someone used a measuring device between them.

“How long was I out?” you ask, honestly amazed at the improvement.  

She chuckles.  “Not bad eh?  But you’ve only had a couple days to mend.  Our extracts will keep helping you fight the infection, but you still need to rest, even when you start feeling better.”

You already feel better, and you’re sick of sleeping.  You think you don’t ever want to sleep again.  She reaches behind her into a bag, and pulls out a clay jar.  It’s full of something green, goopy, and bitter smelling that makes you squirm when she starts smearing it over your injury.  It’s cold, and it tingles, but she’s brisk and precise with the application, so you hardly have time to bitch, and then she got you wrapped up in new, clean linens, and nodding to herself in satisfaction.  

“There now.  Ready to have a bit more company, or would you rather rest first?”

“I’m fine,” you say, even as your traitor body tries to trick you into a yawn.  You haven’t even done anything more rigorous than sit up and eat some dinner, what the hell.  She nods, warns you again to take it easy, then leaves.  You are fine, really.  Maybe your back and side are starting to complain a bit, but it’s fine.  You’ll just rest your eyes for a minute.

 

* * *

 

Eridan barrels through the flap of your tent so fast he’s practically flying.  He lands half on you, hard enough to make you huff out a startled “hwuh!” along with most of your breath, and your side spasms in warning.  Then his shoulders hunch, shudder hard, and tremble, and you hear the loud sniff muffled into your fur blankets, and the growl building in your throat dies.  You rest your hand on his back, rub your thumb down the line of his spine, soothing out his fear.

“All better?”  His eyes are so wide with hope and awe, shiny from a threatening downpour of tears, and puffy around the edges from the last one, but he’s holding on to his ragged composure with the same tenacity that’s run in all of your ancestors’ blood, that got you here in the first place.

“Getting there.”  Your reassurance is all he needs.  All that coiling, tense energy melts away as he molds against you, face, and hands, and fins going slack.  You’re lulled back to sleep by your joined chorus of purrs.

 

* * *

 

Over the next few days you learn more about Kankri and his family.  His clan is small, hardly a clan at all.  Only him, his sire and dam, their adopted guardian, and a psionic.  Karkat is their newest member, only pupated last season, and still more grub wild than not.  Eridan has taken to him like a lost barkbeast.

They try to give you space and time to heal, but each of them offers you any kindness you could want for in their own way.  You aren’t used to the closeness they share, and it’s still smothering.  Your clan was a sprawling thing, made up of clades and kin all interconnected, and muscled into some order by the oldest and strongest.  You had to sneak off and hide in some hollow or tree if you ever wanted a bit of peace for yourself, but it was never because of being cared about too much.  As far as you knew all Orphaner cared about was command and order.

This is different.  It’s intimate, and affectionate, and you kind of doubt you deserve the type of bonds they seem to have.  Somehow you end up both trapped and alienated by their openness.  Eridan grounds you some, but he’s his own troll too.  While you’re mending, he’s healing from his own less visible trauma, inserting himself right into the ebb and flow of this new clan.  You can’t begrudge him for it.  Doesn’t mean you don’t anyway.  More and more you’re left feeling like you’ve been washed out to sea by a storm, and left on a deserted island.  As your strength returns you start to get itchy.  Unsettled.

One night Eridan tumbles in when it’s past dark, and the chatter outside has died to sleepy mumbles, to nose into his familiar spot under your arm.  You know what you gotta do.  It hurts in a way that tunnels deeper than that spear ever did.  

You cross your arms, and roll your back to him.  “Heave off, kid, I ain’t your lovey.”

“Cro?”  God.  Fuck, he sounds so confused.  Aching crawls up your your chest, to your throat, and you choke on it.  “Cro mad?  I did something bad?”

“N- no.”  His hands tug at your shoulder, but you’re far too large for him to ever think of moving.  You hunch away from him anyway.  “You’re a big wiggler now, Eri.  Only little grubs gotta be cuddled to sleep.”

It’s the most sour-tasting lie to ever pass your lips, but he’s gotta stop clinging to you for his own good.  You’ve made up your mind to leave when you’re well enough, and he doesn’t need to be dragged back out into the wild by some misplaced blood loyalty.  You don’t deserve loyalty.  You’ve never done anything in your short, miserable life to earn it.  Especially not after you abandoned your kin once already.

Eridan is quiet for so long you think he fell asleep by you out of spite away.  Then you hear him try to stifle a snuffle, and that rams the heartache home.

A soft, “ ‘Kay,” is the last thing you hear him say before you feel the flutter of breeze from the tent flap, and are plunged back into silence.  You smother the sound of your own grief into your fur nest.

 

* * *

 

Someone’s in the tent with you went to wake up.  You’re half way through a snarl when it catches somewhere about sternum level.  It takes you a fair few seconds to figure out the troll calmly sitting facing you is not Kankri suddenly grown into all his round places with muscle and scruff enough to make you blush.  Must be his dam, then.  He’s humming softly and working with something in his lap- what is that a tiny loom?  He doesn’t have much room to work either, because he’s balancing it in the scant space that’s not being taken up by a egg-swelled belly.  He looks well settled and he’s also blocking the opening, so you aren’t going anywhere without his noticing it looks like.  Well fuck.

He doesn’t look up from his work, but when you shift your weight in nervous fidgeting, he offers you a chipper, “Good morning!”

“Uh, yeah,” you clear your throat.  “Good Mornin’.”

He just keeps working, passing the shuttle back and forth, flipping the little heddles so smoothly between each it almost looks like one motion.  It’s sort of hypnotizing to watch, and without realizing it you’re soon relaxed into the flow of it too.  When he replaces his humming with casual commentary you hardly notice.

“Have to finish the trim for some new slings.  Karkat chewed up all the old ones, my little devil.”  He laughs.  You like his smile, the way his crow’s feet jump into stark relief, like the action is so easy it’s stamped into his being.  “Truth be told we weren’t expecting another one so soon.  Was sweeps between him and Kankri.  He’s about old enough, I should be having him learn to make his own replacements.”  

Back and forth the shuttle goes, only pausing to tap the weft into place then back again it zooms.  “I could teach you and Eridan if you’d like.”

“Eridan’s got quick fingers, and a good head for details.  He’d probably take to it.”

“What about you?”

Your fingers curl in the soft fur.  The noise of the loom fills the silence and your head.  “I, uh.  I’m not stayin’.”

“Ah,” he says like it’s just a matter of you’re going for a walk and back.

“S-so.  You’ll take care of Eri, right?  He likes it here, so I figured.  Well, bein’ clanless ain’t a right way for a wiggler to live, right?”

He nods, not disputing your logic.  “You don’t like it here though?”

“It’s not like that,” you lick you lips, trying desperately to back paddle.  “No offense, you guys have been great.  Really, really great!”

“But...” he prompts without looking up from the lengthening piece of cloth.

“I don’t think I belong here.”  There, you said it.  He hums thoughtfully.

“No, I suppose you don’t.”  That hits you like a slap.  There’s no protest, no resistance.  Well it’s not like you were expecting otherwise but... But maybe you were.  Maybe you wanted someone to at least put up a fight for you.  It would have been nice at least.  You’re so busy still trying to patch together the first hole in your defense that you totally miss when he punches the second one.  “Hard to belong anywhere when you’re running from your guilt.”

“Who says, I’m guilty of something?” you snap back too fast, and regret it.  The first time he’s looked up from his weaving and he does it to pin you down with another smile.

“Being guilty and having guilt aren’t the same thing.  But a man without guilt doesn’t beg forgiveness on death’s door.”

You choke, and look away before he can see the pooling tears threatening to spill.  He doesn’t say anything else about it though.  After another moment he stops with his weaving and picks himself and his little loom up with a groan.

“You have a place here if you want it, Cronus.  Come talk to me before you make your final decision.”  With that he leaves you to wrestle with your conscience alone.

 

* * *

 

Something as simple as walking has become a chore.  Maybe you won’t be making your choice just yet.  You can’t go anywhere when you can hardly take three steps without wobbling over onto your ass.  Kankri helps without you even asking, and doesn’t pay any mind when you end up cursing out the world in a fit of frustration after you hit the ground for the third time in a row.  He waits your tantrum out, then pulls you back up to your feet.  You only flush a little when he pulls your arm over his shoulder and tucks up all cozy against your good side.  

The sprawl of his clan is so humble compared to your own.  There’s two more squat tents of the same style as the one you recovered in and nothing else for shelter.  Off to one side is a pair of simple wooden things you could hardly even call wagons, one of which is covered every inch in an array of potted plants like nothing you’ve ever seen.  Clumped into little groups are the trolls you’ve come to know and the two you haven’t formally met yet, all occupied by the tasks of daily life.  Huntress, the green eyed, and a troll with doubled horns and mismatched eyes are cleaning and sorting tools and blades, while Kankri’s dam and Gran fiddle with their textiles.  

You spot Eridan happily playing pillow for another stubby horned wiggler while they both keep an attentive eye on a cooking pot hung over the campfire.  He sees you not half a moment later, and chirps a happy greeting, which you respond to with a wave.  Kankri helps you hobble over to the tailoring trolls and carefully deposits you.  For a moment you’re worried he’ll leave you alone with them, so you’re relieved when he sits beside you, and pulls some finished cloth out of the pile to start working himself.  

“Glad to see you’re up.  How’re your stitches?”  The relief is short lived since apparently he’s got no intention of protecting you from probing conversations.  You look up at the stately troll woman who just addressed you.  She’s got a new shirt nearly finished taking it’s final shape in her hands, and as she sews on the trim, you’re quite suddenly very sure why she’s asking about your stitches.  Apparently patching you up was a family effort.

“They’re very good ma’m.  Healin’ up real nice.”

She chuckles.  “That’s good.  We’ll see about having them out in a few days.  Can you wait that long to try taking on the world again?”

You duck your head and mutter an affirmative reply.  She says nothing more on it.  You sit in silence while they chatter at each other about weather, and movements of the beast herds, and when they think the first frost will come reaching down from the mountains, as you stare at your empty, fidgeting hands.  It surprises you when a spool of thread drops into your lap.

“You know how to sew, child?”

You nod.  “I patched up our fishing nets when they got holes.”

“Good enough.  Here.”  She drops a fist full of wooden buttons all polished down to shining into your hand then presents you with a needle.  You take it, thread the needle, and accept a pile of finished things she’s already turned out.  When you pick out a button to sew on, you realize they’ve got all sorts of tiny details etched into the wood.  Animals, and fish, and flowers like you’ve only heard of in stories about far off places.  The older red blood notices you noticing and explains that their psionic does it with his psi.  Each one is unique, and so intricate your eyes cross just trying to see everything.

As you set into your new work, the conversation continues, musing about how well the calving season was this year, or how the plants are liking the sweeter valley water.  Kankri asks you if the lake a couple miles away has good fishing this time of year.

“Aye, great in the fall when they’re spawnin’, but it’ll freeze over by the next perigee.  Better place to camp is a bit south.  There’s a creek bed you can follow all the way down that’s dried up this time of year.”

They take that in and pass the discussion back and forth about travel, and timing, and all the things they have to prepare before the new egg arrives.  You’ve got three pouches, and a shirt with their buttons on before Huntress comes over to kiss on her two boys and announce supper’s ready.  The stew from the cooking pot is hardy and thick, and the bread to sop it up with is fresh from that morning.  Eridan sidles over to you with his bowl clutched tightly in his claws, but he’s too afraid of another rejection to push into your personal bubble, so you have to hook his elbow and plop him into your lap.  He beams at you, all hurt forgiven.  Just like that, you forget how to be a stranger.

 

* * *

 

You awake in the night still tucked cozy into the now familiar furs and piled with one more wiggler than you remember arriving with.  Eridan’s head is pillowed on your shoulder and he’s got his arm thrown across you so he can hold onto Karkat’s sleeve while they sleep.  You need to pee.  Fuck.

Thankfully, Karkat seems to sleep like a sack of rocks, and when you transfer him into your vacated space Eridan curls around him with hardly a sleepy mutter.  They look so much like a pair of baby mewbeasts it melts your pumpbiscuit.

Outside the tent, the night air has picked up a chill that wasn’t there only a few days ago.  By the reading of the stars it looks like it’s closer to dawn than dusk, but it’ll still be full dark for a few hours yet.  You move slow, still too shaky to trust your feet, but too proud to ask for help taking a damn piss.  What you already got while still bed ridden and healing was embarrassing enough, thanks.  It’s not that much trouble to find an out of the way tree, it just takes a bit more time than you’d like to waste doing something other than sleeping in a nice comfy pile.

On your way back you see the elder redblood shuffling through the motions of building a fire. No one else has stirred.  You almost manage to ignore him and go back to your tent, but the nagging feeling that’s been nipping at your thinkpan finally sinks it’s teeth in.  You change directions and hobble over to join him.

“Cronus,” he greets you mildly, “It’s a bit early to be up yet.”

“Yeah.  Had to take care of some personal business.  Uh.”  You pull on one fin.  “You said I should talk to you.  Is this a bad time, sir?”

“Not at all.  And call me Arcino.”  The fire’s lit, so he sits with a grunt, folding his legs under him and patting his round belly.  “Won’t be getting any more sleep for a bit anyways.  Always get heartburn when they get this big.  Do me a kindness and put the kettle on, would you?”

You’re slow about it, but probably not any slower than he would have been, and you need the exercise anyway.  Once you’ve got the water, and settled the kettle over the fire, you sit next to him, but the words refuse to settle down with you.

“So...” you stall.  He doesn’t press, and you dangle over this twisting hole in the conversation.

There’s all sorts of badness churning around in your pan like a tempest brewing.  It so big, and too much, you don’t know how to quantify it.  You’re sure if you could pin it down, and look at it, something would click into place, but you don’t know how.  You huff a sigh, scrub your hands down your face and groan.  “This is stupid.  I’m stupid.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Arcino says.  You huff out a laugh.

“How do you know that?”

“Hm.  Well,” he steeples his fingers as he looks into the fire.  “You got yourself and your brother out alive from an ambush that wiped out the rest of your clan, so clearly you’re not stupid, and whatever it is you’re feeling is causing you enough distress to dictate your behavior against logic, so that’s not stupid, either.”

Your throat goes tight.  “That wasn’t smarts that was cowardice.”

“Cronus,”  the word pings you like a command.  That same ‘pay attention I’m about to say something important’ tone Orphaner used to use with you.  Instinctively you brace for the scolding, but it never comes.  Instead, he sighs, looks at you with something ancient in his eyes that makes you sad.  “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that!  I didn’t do anything wrong.  I didn’t!”  You saw the other trolls with grins painted on their faces and clothes dyed in blood.  You saw your kin throw themselves to the slaughter, not so much fighting to win, as to delay the inevitable.  You saw Eridan, huddled in a ditch, his hands squashing his ears flat to his head while the other wigglers ran.  Picking him up and running hadn’t even seemed like a choice.

“Mm,” is all he says.

“I didn’t. I-”  An ember lands by your feet.   You flick dirt at it, and it vanishes, the tiny spark snuffed out without a sound.  “I was sleeping.  I was supposed to be stripping the trees for that bark we make our fiber from.  For the nets.  And I fucked off and took a nap.”

“So you’re alive, and they’re dead because you didn’t get drawn into the fight.   Chance spared you, and you feel guilt for it.  Do you think you could have turned the tide?”

“No!”  Angrily, you slap the sand at the fire this time, but all it does is wobble away for a moment then go right back.  “I know I couldn’t, okay?  That doesn’t-  I still feel like I failed.  I always do, I can never get anything right!”

He nods, understanding, sympathetic.  You kind of hate him for it a little.  “The best part about being alive is that you get to keep trying.  Keep living, learn from mistakes, accept the things you can not change, like the past, and work to change the things you can.  If you stay here, we can help you.”

“I don’t deserve help.”  Luck and laziness, that was always you.  Or maybe luck and lust.  Spin would often tell you that The Lady favored you in more ways than one, but you’ve never done anything deserving of it in your whole life.  Your chest has gone so tight you can’t get air in right, and your gasp comes out shaking.

Arcino’s hand lands on your shoulder.  It’s warm, and heavy, comforting in a way even the fire fails to do.  His words land right after it.  

“Help isn’t something one earns, it’s something one _needs_.  The troll who would deny it based on worthiness has nothing but thorns in place of a heart.”  You sniff back tears as you look up to his face, and find a smile.  “You and your brother are welcome in our family, and we are glad to have you.”

“I would like it if you stayed.”   You both startle and look for the new speaker.  Kankri slowly shuffles forward into the circle of firelight, looking like a guilty child, and picking at his shirt sleeve.  “I do not intend to pressure you, of course.  By no means should you feel as if you are under any obligation, reciprocal or otherwise, to entertain-”

“The point, Kankri,” Arcino prods, and his mouth snaps shut over the gushing fount of words.  He clears his throat, and glares pointedly at his dam.

“Yes...  The point is, if you are inclined to choose to stay, I would be... pleased.”  Even in the flickering light you can see dark color spreading in from the tips of his fins.  Your heart can not fucking handle this kind of mood whiplash; the tears you were holding in check spill over even as a grin blooms across your face.

“Yeah.  I- okay.  Okay.  I’ll stay for a bit.”  You scoot over to give Kankri room, and he accepts the unspoken invitation to sit beside you.  You feel like the building pressure from before has abated, not as a one giant burst, but a slow trickle.  You can’t seem to stop it from leaking out your face.  Kankri produces a handkerchief from somewhere, and Arcino passes around hot cups of something milky, and sweet that makes you feel sleepy.  Or maybe that’s just a combination of the hour, and the fallout of your recent emotional ride.  Either way, you end up nodding off while leaning into Kankri’s shoulder, and letting his words blanket you.

 

* * *

 

If anything could be described as organized chaos, it’s breaking down and packing up a camp.  The clan has a destination in mind further south, someplace out of reach of winter frosts where the new egg can be laid and hatched in favorable conditions.  Rope is something you’re at ease with, even if the things you’re tying down are wagons, not boats.  Eridan tries his best to help.  Mostly he just gives bossy Karkat a target to be distracted by, but it works.  Everything is rolled, and wrapped, and tied then loaded up in one of the two carts and secured before noon.  

There’s no fire for lunch.  Instead you share flatbread, seasoned jerky, and wild picked huckleberries.  Karkat and Eridan make faces at each other with juice stained teeth, and play some pretend game of hunters, or warriors, or cannibals, you can’t keep track of the plot.  Frankly, you don’t think they can either.  You lean against one of the carts and watch them as you take your rest, but your thoughts are turning inward.  You’ve been chasing down the trailing ends of an idea for the past couple of days.

A hand on your back snaps your attention back to the present.  Kankri is looking at you, brows raised in inquiry.

“We’re almost done. If you need a longer rest, then don’t be afraid to ask for it.”

“Nah.”  You roll your shoulders.  Moving feels good.  You’re starting to get your strength back for real, and you’re anxious to get this journey started.  It feels like everything’s been scrubbed up clean and shiny just for you.  “I was just thinking about something I need to do.”

“What’s that?”  He rolls his fingers over the dip of your spine, and that feels good too.

“I was thinking maybe... we could look for any other trolls that got away.”

“Find Spin,” Eridan’s little voice pipes up from somewhere below you.  Looking down, you find him sucking his fingers clean of the berry stains.  There’s fruit pulp in his hair.

“Maybe,” you say.  You don’t tell him yes.  You don’t tell him that Spin and the rest are all dead, either.  If there’s one troll too wily for death, it’d be her.

Kankri nods.  “I’ll mention it to Gran, I’m sure she’ll have some ideas.”

“If you’re all done flapping your talk holes, let’s finish up,” Alhena, the psionic, pesters you as he comes around the other side of your wagon.  He claps his hands together as if brushing off dust from his labor, but you know for a fact he literally didn’t lift a finger to move anything.  His every effort was accomplished through telekinesis.  

Kankri stoops to pick up Eridan, licks his thumb, and starts in cleaning the corners of the wiggler’s mouth where he missed some stains.  Looking around, the once lively camp is now a barren flattened circle of dirt.  Arcino’s settled on the back of one of the wagons, with Karkat squashed up next to him, and enduring a similar treatment as Eridan, though he grumbles about it louder.  Gran and Huntress are checking tie downs, and doing a last sweep for forgotten items.  There’s nothing left to do here but move on.

Alhena takes the point, and his red, and blue psi flicker around both wagons.  With a heave, and a groan of wood, they begin to move, slowly at first, but quickly picking up speed to a reasonable marching pace.  You manage to keep your jaw off the ground, but only just.  Ho-ly _shit_.

Huntress laughs when she catches you staring.  She mouths at you ‘show off,’ and rolls her eyes before trotting past to take up guarding the port flank.

The wagons draw away from you.  You breathe, slow, once in, and once out, then take your first step into a new world.


End file.
